THE YOUNG STEP-MOTHER WISHES TO ENTER INTO HIGH SOCIETY.
Mrs. Chandos mused profoundly after the lively little lady had gone. She
began to wonder why she had so contentedly given up the intention she
certainly had when she married of becoming a great lady. She saw now
that it was partly because she felt herself to be so different from all
the persons into whose intimate society she was thrown after her
marriage.
They seemed surprised at so many little things she had been taught at
the finishing-school to do. Even the choice of her words, and the way of
speaking she had been so strictly enjoined to adopt, were so different
from their own ways, that they seemed to startle them. All this had made
her less impatient to enter into general society than she had hitherto
been. And then came Mr. Chandos’s illness, and she had begun to love and
admire him far more than she ever expected to have done, and she found
herself consulting his wishes, and wishing sincerely to make him happy.
All this had caused her worldliness to lie dormant, but it was by no
means extinguished, and she kept thinking, with some regret, that she
could not go to a party which even that great lady Selina “would give
her eyes to go to”--the Lady Selina Bugginfield, whose fame as a lady of
the highest fashion was talked of even at her finishing-school--her
deportment-master having emphasized his directions for getting into a
carriage by saying, “Lady Selina Bugginfield puts her hand _so_ on the
door, and turns her head gracefully so.”
And now to think that she herself could be welcomed at a ball from which
this great Lady Selina was excluded--she, the daughter of a man who came
to Birmingham as a youth of eighteen, with only sixpence in his pocket,
and whose mother had begun life as a ladysmaid! It was a tempting
thought, and she began to ask herself whether, after all, Lady
Spendfast’s advice ought to be rejected, and, as a duty to herself,
and, indeed, to Mr. Chandos’s girls, and to her own little baby, such
opportunities of entering the great world ought not to be refused.
Norah stood at the window for some moments after Lady Spendfast had
gone, thinking most anxiously of the probable or improbable fate of Sir
Alfred; but her mind was too well trained to remain long absorbed in her
own peculiar fears, and she suddenly remembered that Lady Spendfast’s
thoughtless talk about the great world might have taken some fatal hold
on her young and inexperienced step-mother.
So she came and knelt down by her side, and put her arm round her
slender waist, and said,
“I hope you do not think that we ought to go to those parties, dear
mamma. Although of course it is natural that you should wish to see
something of general society,” she added, after a short pause, as she
perceived a decidedly discontented look in her fair young face. “Yet I
doubt whether----”
“Oh! no, I don’t wish to go. You know, I was not brought up as you were;
and I should be sure to do or say something wrong.”
“No, indeed you would not. It is solely on papa’s account that I would
not wish that we should go.”
“And you don’t care about it, I know,” said Mrs. Chandos, in a
melancholy tone. “You have always lived in it, and so there could be
nothing new to see. But you know I never was at a ball in my life,
except at Birmingham, and that was in my own set--quite different.”
“Therefore you think that you would like to see a real great ball, among
great people. It is a most natural wish, and I will consult papa,
if----”
“No, no--don’t do that, dear Norah. Don’t let me be foolish. You know I
always look up to you; and I try so to copy you.”
While this conversation had been taking place, Mr. Chandos was sunning
himself on the Pincio with Hetty, and some of the younger children, who,
in the full glee of youthful enjoyment, were running about, or playing
at hide-and-seek among the orange and cypress trees. Norah knew where
he was, and after a little more talk with her stepmother, she put on
her bonnet, and mounted the steps at the back of the hotel, which led up
to the beautiful gardens on the Pincio.
She found him sitting on one of the benches which commanded that
splendid view over Rome and St. Peter’s, and the blue Campagna beyond,
lovely, but to some minds intensely melancholy.
A glorious sight to others, this battlefield of the world, the place
which has had such influence for good and evil over civilized mankind
for so many, many centuries. These see only the conquests and successes
of a civilizing power; while others are impressed by the struggles and
defeats--ruin, desolation, and decay.
Norah was too full of present anxieties at this moment to have any
thought for the past, so she walked quickly to the sheltered seat, where
she hoped to find her father. Little Hetty was talking to him eagerly,
and from the child’s agitated face, and her father’s sad look, she
fancied that the strange news about Sir Alfred must have reached them.
She was not mistaken. Signor Valentino had soon learnt the fact of the
Baronet’s disappearance, and had told Cattarina, who informed Miss Hetty
of it during the sort of little Italian lesson she gave that young lady
every morning.
On seeing Norah approach, the tactful little girl immediately joined the
others in their play, and led them to a different part of the garden,
that the father and elder sister might be undisturbed.
Norah would not allow him to dwell long upon the painful subject of Sir
Alfred’s mysterious disappearance, when nothing could be done, but
proceeded to relate the conversation they had lately had with Lady
Spendfast, as she wished that her father should advise what course it
would be best to pursue.
“You think she has rather a hankering to see a little more of life. No
wonder, poor child; and it was foolish of me----”
“No, no, that is not the way to look at it,” interrupted Norah. “You
acted for the best--for all of us. She is very good, and becomes more
devoted to you every day.”
“But you think it will be better that she should see the world a little,
dear Norah? If so, you must of course go out with her; you certainly
will not like that, particularly at the present moment of real anxiety,
for it is impossible not to feel that he may have put an end to
himself.”
A shudder passed over her at the idea, and she became deadly pale.
She said in a firm voice, “It can make no difference to me: I must of
course feel anxious, and--but it will not be worse at the D---- fête
than if I were shut up in my own room, and it may satisfy and please
mamma to see that she can at any time enter into good society; but I
don’t expect she will be so fascinated by it as to become worldly, or
wish often to leave you alone.”
“Yet she is very pretty, Norah; the fresh fair sunny beauty and youth
which is admired so much in these southern lands.”
“Yes, I know that; but----”
“But still you seem to think it advisable?”
“Yes, if you do.”
“Well, then, order the carriage this afternoon, and we will all three
drive with the letters, and leave them at the different palaces.”
“And you--will you go with us to see the Vatican by torchlight, as Lady
Spendfast wishes? How pleased the little resolute blundering lady will
be to have carried her point!”
After luncheon they drove to various palaces and embassies, and left
their letters and cards. Then Mr. Chandos suggested that the dresses
his wife and Norah had might not be quite fresh enough to wear at such
great parties as Lady Spendfast had described, so they went to the
dressmaker she had recommended, and Mr. Chandos helped them to choose
some new dresses, observing that at all events he should have the
pleasure of seeing them in their ball dresses before they started.
Mrs. Chandos was deeply touched at the kind way in which he entered into
the details of her dress, and at his approval of her unexpressed wish to
attend the fêtes; and when the invitations arrived, and when she and
Norah were dressed in the becoming attire he had chosen, the tears
started to her eyes as she wished him good night.
“All right; now go and enjoy yourselves,” he said, “and you will be able
to amuse me with an account of it all to-morrow.”